Finally got around to checking out this supposed classic. The sound is fine, and the playing is mostly fine, but there are a lot of songs that sound under-rehearsed, and the classics don't have a ton of X-Factor. There are a few ugly cuts in songs that you wouldn't want cut.

Please do yourself a favor and jump ahead one year, to a time when a similar set list would melt your brain. With so much amazing GD to listen to, I would encourage you to not dally here. If you simply must hear some of it, then cue up the BIODTL through Bobby McGee, then skip to Casey, then to Loser, and then to Good Lovin'. Better yet, pick up a copy of the Grateful Dead CD (aka, Skull & Roses, or Skull F*#@), which has three songs from this night in great sound. That release, and Ladies and Gentlemen (official 4-CD release), present all the songs the band were playing at that time, but in great sound. If you need a "bootleg," then try 4/17/71, which has a similar set list, but with a bit more energy than this show.

With so many amazing 5-star shows circulating, don't waste your time with this one.

The sound quality is passable, not great. But I'm not going to mince words here. The performance -- and particularly the vocals -- downright awful. Jerry sounds tired, off tune. Pig and Jerry are flat, and they sound tired. Phil on backup vocals sounds like a sick dog, though perhaps not as bad as Pig's howls on Midnight Hour. And Bobby? Holy sh!t, my ears will never be the same. Bobby's shrieks are even more grating than usual on Johnny B. Goode, Not Fade Away, and Truckin'. I mean, I love Truckin'. And sure, Bobby's shrieks in the outtro of said song sound more like someone getting stabbed in the spleen with a raw butter knife than someone singing (Oh, you know what I'm talking about: "aahhhggghh!!!! get back Truckin on..... ahhhhggghhhgggg!!!!! get back, Truckin on!! aahhhggghghhfjdfkdj!!!!"). But this one will make your ears bleed -- perhaps even comparable with some of Donna's most WTF Playin' howls.

Speaking of Playin in the Band. This version deserves its own paragraph break. Now, Playin ranks up there with Dark Star and The Other One amongst my favorite Dead jam vehicles (I have a playlist of my top 50 favorite versions of the song -- all to say, I'm not a casual listener). I even enjoy many of the short versions from '71 (Two from the Vault, DP35, Princeton, Chicago, Taft Theater, etc.). But Bobby doesn't hit a note.

It's fine, I'll look the other way and assume they were dosed. As a Dead fan and collector, I'm generally pretty forgiving of their flubs, because the music hits so many transcendental peaks for me. I've proudly collected 421 shows so far without deleting a single one, but I guess there's a first time for everything!

This was the last of 3 days at Hammerstein Ballroom (Manhattan Center is the name of the building. It's just diagonal-corner N of Madison Square Garden). The first set is solid but with long breaks. The second is average-to-sloppy for '71, especially the singing. The show is known for Oh Boy and the version of Playing on the Skull Fuck album (2 more have since been added as bonus tracks).

First Set. The action is the Oh Boy!, the I'm a Hog, (the only ones - post-'66 anyway) and the Playing (that we all know - though this isn't overdubbed). It's not 8/2/4 but it's new and great. But Casey Jones is also a great rave-up version. Pig accidentally steps on Jer's measure during Hurts Me Too but they fly with it and you can just see them grinning at each other with the way it turns out. BiODtL-14, Midnight Hour and Dire Wolf are all above average and Mama Tried is always a smoker in early '71.

Second Set. A lackluster set that never really takes off '71-style. There's a nice drop-in to JBG and Loser-SS is the set highlight. Jer is heavy on the wah for a serviceable Sugar Mag. Bobby's yelps on Truckin' are anti-posterity; GDtRFB is a short one.

1st Set:   B-
2nd Set: C-
Overall = 3 stars

Highlights:
Oh Boy! - the Buddy Holly song
I'm a Hog (for you baby) - The Coasters song
Playing in the Band - There's a 26-second glitch @3:50. I patched mine with the Jerry Moore AUD
Casey Jones - Tight and without the '71 Bobby shout

SOURCES: All of the SBDs come from the same erratic source and need pitch correction during the 1st set. Bertha and BiODtL need +2%. Bobby McGee through Mama Tried need +1%.The stephens sounds best to me with a slightly better image than cantor. The image is great on the smith.gems. but it's also noisy and incomplete. The sound improves through the 1st set.

I attended this show with my sister-my first Dead show and my first rock concert. I stood up front about 15 feet from Phil Lesh and had my little 16 year old mind thoroughly blown.Pigpen playing a Hammond organ with a bottle of Cutty Sark on top. Hundreds of longhairs stoned on acid dancing and grooving to the vast array of old Fender amps littered around the stage.
I saw these guys maybe 25 more times but this show remains one of the peak experiences
of my adolescence.

Thank you its an amazing website that we have here and thanks for the hit back on how to download deadhead1971 im lookin for im a hog for you baby on a show if you find one send it this way???

I've seen a lot of questions about downloading music content from this site and thought I would share some info. Most of the content is streaming and cannot be download in the "traditional" manner. Streaming audio can be captured and saved in various formats but not directly added as a file source to any digital music players. Players will however save the file links. There are ways of capturing and then saving the music to files but I'm not sure if advising someone as to how that is done is legal so you will have to figure it out on your own. Plenty on this subject all over the web.

Finally the guys and gals who have done the work on all of the dead music are incredibly bright dedicated people and deserve a lot of credit and thanks from all rest of the deadheads scattered through the globe. Their degree of detail and recall is nothing short of outstanding ! ! !

kickass show

good sound great it hurts me too..worth the time to download

incredible, incredible stuff... rock-solid already, even w/o the historical Oh Boy and Hog For You bustouts... Near-perfect sound quality... do it now...

awesome good luvin drums.

This version appeared on a "Dead Marathon" analog tape from Boulder Co. with no documentation! I'm so happy to find a solid version I could shit. Enjoy.

I was there-
the "tuning" track is actually a period of trying to re-connect the stage microphones-
I was sitting in the front row of the balcony, with my legs hanging down the front of the balcony, and had accidently disconnected a cable-
at the end of the track, a voice asks people to back up